


Don't Worry 'Bout the Cost

by Escapologist



Series: Happy Steve Bingo [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Cooking, Food, Happy Steve Bingo, M/M, Memories, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve knows his way around the kitchen, obviously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 15:46:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16121684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Escapologist/pseuds/Escapologist
Summary: My friendAlisetkindly invited me to join in with her Happy Steve Bingo card. This is what I came up with for the prompt ‘Cooking’.Back in New York, Bucky’s recovery is going well. Against all the odds Steve has the most important person in his life back. But how much of him has been lost along the way?As they mooch around the farmer’s market and cook dinner together, Steve struggles to keep a handle on his own nostalgia, and walks the jagged line around Bucky’s fragile memories.





	Don't Worry 'Bout the Cost

“Jesus.”

Bucky blows out a low whistle. Steve hasn’t heard that sound since the war, but the sudden familiarity of it brings him out in goosebumps. A slideshow of images flashes through his mind: Bucky clocking his latest shiner, or walking in, unexpected, on one of his better paintings. The two of them cresting a hill in Switzerland just in time to catch the sunset.

“That all fresh?”

“Yep. C’mon.”

He leads the way slowly around the perimeter, hands in pockets, so Bucky can take in the piles and piles of brightly-coloured produce. Red and yellow tomatoes, sleek purple eggplants, piles of dappled green zucchini, _mountains_ of peaches.

“Get a load of this. Whadda they call that?”

“That’s a romanesco cauliflower.”

Bucky blinks. “Jesus,” he says again.

Steve’s eyes flick over to him for the twentieth time. He’s doing his best not to project his nervousness, but he’s sure Bucky can pick up on it anyway.

“I couldn’t believe it either, when I first came down here,” he says. “Some things are a lot… better.”

Bucky shrugs, his eye still surveying the rows of food stalls, laden with produce from farms all across the state. It’s only his third full day in Steve’s company outside the private facility entrusted with his treatment, and this is the longest they’ve spent out of doors.

So far, so good.

“Okay,” Steve says. “I’m gonna head over here and grab some potatoes.”

A strong hand darts out and grabs his arm, startling him.

“Somebody’ll recognise you.”

Bucky’s voice is even, but his eyes are wide and reprimanding. Steve smirks and shakes his head.

“In _this_ hat?”

The exasperated eye-roll he gets in response is so completely Bucky-ish, it makes Steve’s heart stutter. Ha. Like Bucky’s not in a damn ballcap, too.

“People in Brooklyn now are… they don’t want you to think they’re impressed,” he explains.

Bucky ponders this for a moment.

“Oh, I get it. Like, ‘Captain _America?_ Man, that guy’s always hanging around here.’”

A grin creeps onto Steve’s face. Bucky talks softly now, out of the corner of his mouth, instead of yabbering on like he used to, but jibes like this show that parts of his old self still survive. The Brooklyn edge may have worn off a little, but that voice still takes Steve right back to the time before the war changed everything.

Bucky turns to follow Steve into the crowd.

“’Fuckin’ with my carrots,’” he mutters, almost inaudibly.

That one rips a chuckle out of Steve, and then he’s off: the pent-up tension rolling out of him in silent, quaking laughter. The kind that uses your whole body, makes your ribs shake and your head light. God, it’s been a long time. Bucky used to make him laugh so hard he’d get hiccups, then mock him for it without mercy.

He’s trying to get a hold of himself when there’s a weighty blow to his arm.

“Cut it out, you dumb schmuck. What’s so funny?”

Bucky may not quite have cracked a real smile yet, since they got back to New York, but there’s a twinkle in his blue eyes. Little crinkles at the corners. 

“I told you, nobody’s gonna care that I’m here.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I don’t want them staring at me. Y’ever think of that?”

 _“Sorry,”_ Steve says, but he’s still smiling as he wipes a tear from the corner of his eye.

He buys a huge bag of new potatoes and shuffles them both over to a fruit stall. Bucky gazes at the baskets of mangoes and blueberries, squinting at the little signs to read the names and raising his eyebrows at the prices.

“We’da killed for this kind of stuff, huh? Before?”

“Yeah. We didn’t see much fresh fruit, it was mainly dried. Remember prune pudding?”

Bucky’s still for a while, frowning at the middle distance. Then his face opens up in surprise. 

“Woah, yeah.”

Steve keeps watching as the new memory unfolds on Bucky’s face. 

“I… _hated_ it.”

He glances over, hopeful, and gets an enthusiastic nod in reply. Steve’s been warned not to push too hard – not to make it so obvious how happy it makes him when Bucky remembers something – but it’s not always easy to hide it. Today is already going better than he hoped.

“Gave me the fuckin’ shits.”

Steve snorts again, inwardly delighted. He leads them slowly past the stalls while Bucky follows, shadow-close, constantly checking over his shoulder. Before long they’ve picked up corn spears, bell peppers, organic carrots, still covered with a dusting of brown earth, tomatoes, fresh lima beans in their shells, a lemon, a chilli pepper, various fresh herbs, thick bacon and a whole free-range corn-fed chicken, which makes Bucky’s eyes pop. 

He’s just marvelling at the array of meat available when something else catches his eye, and he pauses again.

“Hey, didn’t we –” Bucky straightens up and turns to Steve. “Did we have apples one time? During the war?”

“Yes!” 

Steve falls over himself to confirm it. Nostalgic warmth trickles through him. “In France. It was winter. We found a whole sack of ‘em, in an abandoned barn.”

It was one of those days that was rough going at the time; cold and exhausting, with tension running high. From where he’s standing now, though, it looks to Steve like a cheering episode of camaraderie and pluck. 

Bucky’s nodding slowly.

“Right. And Dugan was… he lined ‘em up on wall and fucking… _shot_ at ‘em.”

“That’s right!” Steve replies, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. “And you said…”

“I said… quit shooting the damn food.”

“Yeah!”

“Honestly,” Bucky says. “Kind of asshole shoots _food?_ ”

Steve makes himself wait a while before speaking again.

“Know what happened after that?”

He’s met with a puzzled frown.

“I… no.”

“The two of you got to arguing about it. You called him stupid, and he said you were no fun anymore. It was like, the madder you got, the more he goaded you. And then in the end he was all, ‘C’mon then Barnes, shoot it off my head.’ Y’ know, like—”

He can see Bucky turning the story over in his mind, face muscles twitching minutely as the images start to fall into place.

“Oh my God,” Bucky says, bring his hand up to hide his face. “Oh my _God_. Then I…”

“… then he took off his hat and balanced the apple up there. Bet you a whole pack of cigarettes you wouldn't do it. And you acted like you were done. Walking away.”

Bucky shakes his head. “Pain in my ass, that guy.”

Steve thinks he’s got a good feel, now, for the times when it helps for him to finish a story so that Bucky doesn’t have to tell it himself. He carries on, animated.

“So you strode off to the other end of the barn, and Dugan was sitting there saying ‘told ya,’, and then you just… turned on your heel, and pulled out your pistol and shot. BANG!” 

He mimes the whole thing, pulling up an imaginary gun from his side, turning and firing, and flicking his hand up to show the recoil. Chuckling as he speaks.

“Apple everywhere. All over Jones’s face. And Dugan just sat there and stared at you in shock.”

Steve can see it all in high-definition, as if it were happening in front of him right now. He can _feel_ it: the lightning thrill that passed through him, the way his heart sped up at Bucky’s skill and panache, the faint sense of guilt that he had let this happen, and that he knew full well he wouldn’t be reprimanding anybody over it. Damn.

He looks eagerly over at Bucky, but instead of amusement, only dismay registers on his face. Instantly the humour evaporates. Steve wishes he’d picked a different story. One with less violence. 

“Stupid,” Bucky mutters. “Stupid.”

“I mean, you coulda done it blindfold,” Steve says hastily. “Boys all knew it. You were the _best_.”

That doesn’t seem to help. Bucky rubs his eyes and kicks at the floor.

“I guess.”

“It was alright,” Steve persists. “The guys all cheered, and Dugan grinned and said ‘attaboy’. And everybody calmed down after that.”

Bucky doesn’t answer, and Steve kicks himself. He’d always thought the world of Bucky, and at the time he just thought the war had changed him, like it changed everyone. Made him sharper, more withdrawn. But thinking about it now… had he really been _that_ good a shot? Before...?

Dammit. He’s gotta be more careful.

 _This is a unique case_ , the doctor had told Steve. _Best to keep the conversation to everyday things. Nothing too emotive – we don’t want him destabilised when he’s away from here. We should let the big things come in their own time._

Nothing too _emotive_? God. If only they knew. 

He should’ve thought that story through. Maybe skipped straight to the punchline, which was that they all had fresh apples for a whole week.

“I’ll take, uh… a Braeburn,” Steve says to the burly guy behind the stall.

“One? Sure.” 

Steve fishes some change out of his pocket and hands it over. 

“Hey,” he says.

Bucky doesn’t answer. Rippling with anxiety, Steve turns to look for him, and spots him only a few feet away. Slouching with his hands in his pockets. His outfit’s not a wild departure from the dark colours of his former uniform, but it’s definitely all things he’s chosen himself: black pants, durable, sturdy boots, a navy hoodie. 

It’s a stark contrast to the Bucky of the 1930s who paid more attention to his appearance than Steve considered necessary. Not that it matters. Steve likes this new Bucky, with his long hair and stubbled jaw, just as much as he liked the old one.

Steve follows his sidelong gaze over to a stall selling dried dates and figs, where a family with two young children is browsing. Bucky’s watching them with the same faraway, impassive expression that always seems to settle on his face whenever he’s not being spoken to.

At one time he used to be able to get a good idea of what was going through Bucky’s mind. But these days he often has no idea at all.

“Hey,” he says again, a little louder. Bucky’s gaze snaps to him, instantly alert.

“Here,” Steve smiles.

He tosses the apple in the air, and Bucky catches it in his gloved left hand, without breaking eye contact. There’s that twinkle again. He glances down at the apple, then back at Steve, and takes a bite.

“Thanks,” he says, through the mouthful of apple. 

Honestly, it’s like déjà vu, watching Bucky eat and talk at the same time. Those who swooned over what a perfect gentleman he was back in the ‘30s clearly never split a sandwich with the guy.

“You ready to head back?”

Bucky nods and falls into step behind him, crunching away. As they leave the market, Steve’s eye falls on a sign strapped to a pole.

“Hey, we gotta come back here next week,” he says over his shoulder. “They’re having a salsa-off.”

Bucky stares at him, chewing slowly.

“What the fuck is _salsa_?” he says.

*

They make their way over to Steve’s pre-war two-bed on Prospect Park West and climb the stairs to the seventh floor. The first time Bucky came here he called it old-fashioned. Steve replied that they don’t make stuff like they used to any more, but the truth is, the period furniture and old records feel like respite from a world which still has the power to baffle him sometimes.

The visit to the market was a great success in Steve’s book, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel the tension lift when he closes the apartment door behind them.

Bucky tugs off his gloves, wriggles out of his jacket and leaves his boots arranged neatly by the door.

“You want anything to drink? You hungry?” 

“Yeah, I could eat,” Bucky nods.

It seems normal enough, but this is really significant. It wasn’t always the case that Bucky saw being hungry as reason enough to eat something. He’s built himself up slowly, though, and now his appetite almost matches Steve’s some days.

“So, you gonna help me cook?”

Bucky follows him into the kitchen. Its fittings and contents are a little more modern than the rest of the apartment, because in truth, old stuff has its limits. Steve unpacks the canvas bags straight onto the counter, pulling out chopping boards, pans, knives and cupboard supplies while Bucky leans into the corner, downing a glass of water.

“You any good with a knife?” 

The question rolls too quickly off Steve’s tongue. His attention is focused on testing the blade with his finger, and it’s not until he’s laid it on the counter next to the onions that he glances up, looking for a reply. Bucky’s staring at him with a mixture of incomprehension and incredulity. 

Damn. _Again_. What a thing to ask.

“Aw, jeez, Buck, sorry. I didn’t…”

Then Bucky’s face softens, giving Steve the distinct impression he’s being laughed at. A shiny metal hand reaches out and grabs the knife, cutting him off mid-apology.

“Gimme that. I’m gonna chop the crap outta these things.”

Bucky _is_ good with a knife. A couple of pointers from Steve and he’s away, dicing each onion into uniform little pieces in a matter of seconds. Enhancements or not, Bucky’s always been dazzlingly competent, and Steve’s always regarded him with both awe and pride. Not that he’d ever let on.

“S’not a race, pal,” he says.

Behind that deadpan face he can feel Bucky smirking.

“What else you got.”

Steve breaks off from rubbing salt and pepper into the chicken to hand him an empty bowl and a bag full of unshucked corn. He raises his eyebrow in a challenge, which Bucky answers with an unimpressed face, like the-fuck-you-want-me-to-do-with-that?

“You gotta peel off the leaves, then cut off the corn and put it in the bowl.”

“Yes sir,” Bucky says.

He turns away to the opposite counter and busies himself yanking the green skins off the corn cobs, then slicing them lengthways, watching the kernels fall away in stripes and cascade onto the counter. It’s an oddly mesmerising sight. Steve glances over, letting his eyes linger. The ghost of a small, blonde woman in an apron floats across his mind.

“My mom was really good at that,” he says. “Rem- ?”

He can already see Bucky’s shoulders tense. Jesus, Rogers. Quit asking if he remembers every damn thing. 

It’s like the memories are there somewhere, Bucky’s told him, but he can’t reach all of them. A lot are vague, shapeless images, or just feelings instead of pictures. Sometimes they come crashing in suddenly, sharp and full of detail; other times they fade completely before he can catch hold of them. The difficulty, he said once, is in distinguishing between what’s real and what’s gotten warped, or dreamed up entirely.

After Steve had applied his usual tenacity to the resolving Bucky’s legal status and arranging him the best possible medical care, his progress was remarkable. The doctors were flying blind, of course: “brainwashing” was hardly an adequate term for the decades of violent, systematic mind-wiping Bucky had been through. Neither did they understand much about the ways in which his system was healing itself. The workings of the memory are mysterious enough without having to account for medically unheard-of super-enhancements.

But trauma was something they _did_ understand. The team focused on emotional support: monitoring, assessment, diet, exercise and intensive therapy in various forms. Bucky had tackled the difficult work around his triggers with a determination that filled Steve with pride and admiration. It’s been a long, rocky road, but they’ve got to a point now where the strikes outnumber the gutters. 

On Bucky’s side, at least.

In the kitchen overlooking Prospect Park there’s a long pause, during which Steve has some firm words with himself. Then Bucky flicks him an apologetic grimace.

“Sorry. I don’t.”

He looks really contrite. It makes Steve ache all over. The instinct to touch him is just so _strong_ – to slide an arm around him, bring him close, the way Steve’s body remembers. The way it relearned, after the serum. He has to fold his arms across his chest to keep from doing it. 

Every time they’re together he finds himself pushing away his urges and trying not to hope for too much. Trying not to wonder if they’ll ever reach for each other again. If one day, in this strange new world, he’ll finally be able to tell people what Bucky really means to him.

So far Bucky’s shown no sign that he remembers what they were. And as badly as Steve wants to bring it up, he knows it’s not fair to jeopardise his recovery. Bucky has to be allowed to come to it in his own time.

But maybe he won’t. Or maybe he will, and it’ll turn out he’s unable, or worse, unwilling, to get so close again. This is what lurks in Steve’s mind during his bleaker moments. He can handle almost limitless adversity, and get back up each time, but the thought of _that_ … 

Better to stay in the limbo of possibility than risk permanent heartbreak.

He puts on a smile, waves a hand to dismiss Bucky’s apology, and goes back to the chicken.

“Hey, ya pass me that lemon?” he asks. There’s a movement behind him and Steve pivots, just in time to snatch the fruit out of the air, where Bucky’s thrown it over his shoulder. 

Look at this, right here. The two of them cooking together. This is good. It’s _great_. Who’d have thought he’d ever even have _this_? It would be greedy to ask for any more.

As they work in the comfortable quiet that only comes with true familiarity, Steve allows himself to relax. His shoulders drop and his thoughts drift free from worry. Humming some old tune, he shoves the lemon into the chicken’s cavity along with some garlic and slides the roasting tin into the oven. This is a good day. The kind that means you can get through any number of bad ones, because you know that you can have days like this.

While Bucky starts work on the lima beans, unzipping their shells one by one and popping out the contents, Steve measures out flour and porridge oats. He takes much more care than usual as he adds in some salt and bicarbonate of soda, rubs in some butter, and finally pours in some buttermilk, mixing it all together with practiced speed.

It’s a recipe he can usually throw together with barely a second thought. This time, though, it makes him a little nervous. Maybe faintly guilty. He decides against examining that too closely and focuses instead on making the dough perfect. 

This bread needs only the lightest of touches: too much kneading and it gets too tough. Into a bowl it goes, covered with a surreptitious dish cloth. Steve adds the cherry tomatoes and glossy red peppers to Bucky’s chopping pile. A huge pan of waxy new potatoes bubbles away on the stove, next to a cold pot of penny cafeteria-style pea soup he made in advance, ready to cook later. Now it’s time to fry up the bacon.

Bucky stops chopping and sniffs the air.

“God, that smells good,” he says.

“Don’t it?”

“OK, I’m done.” Bucky stretches his arms above his head. “Anything else?”

“Yup. You can cook the vegetables.”

“…Really?”

“Yeah, s’easy. Look… a little bit of oil…” Steve drizzles olive oil around an enormous saucepan, before setting it on the hob to heat up. “Onion and garlic first, then you just… throw in the rest. Maybe some chilli and vinegar at the end.”

He hands Bucky a wooden spatula and gestures towards the piles of corn, beans, peppers and tomatoes, along with the bacon bits. Bucky’s eyes are wide and uncertain as he steps up to the pan and gives it a jiggle. There’s a loud hiss when he tips the raw onions into the hot oil, but he soon has them sizzling gently, filling the air with a sweet tang that mingles happily with the scent of roasting chicken.

“How’d you know when to… oh. They’re going all brown.”

He pokes at the onions. They spit hot fat at him, making him recoil.

“Just do what you feel, Buck. Follow your nose.”

Bucky narrows his eyes.

“Huh. You might live to regret this.”

*

The vegetables turn out great. Bucky even butters the potatoes afterward.

“That was fun,” he says.

Looks like he means it, too. He’s doing that thing again where he smiles without moving his mouth.

*

There’s a little while to go until the chicken’s rested, so Steve sends Bucky to go sit on the couch while he stacks up the dirty kitchen things and makes the gravy. Bucky’s never been good at relaxing, but he obeys without argument. Minutes later, when Steve steals a glance through the kitchen door, he’s deep in thought, gazing at the window.

It always pains Steve to notice how Bucky’s fingers naturally curl across his body as if he’s cradling a rifle – a wartime habit, further ingrained by everything that happened after. Steve’s own hands can fling a shield around all day long, but later, when he’s at rest, they still hold the memory of Bucky’s body. The feel of him. His shape. The layout of his bones, his weak spots. 

So the best thing he can do is keep his empty hands busy. He shapes the dough roughly into loaf, plumps it onto a baking tray and scores an ‘x’ into the top, before sliding it into the oven. Next he carves the chicken into juicy slices.

“Serving up.”

Bucky jerks his head round, but he gets up slowly, instead of leaping immediately to his feet the way he once would have. Steve gestures for him to sit down at the small table. Carefully, he carries through the loaded plates, balancing in one hand little antique gravy boat Natasha gave him. 

Bucky’s eyes track his steaming plate as Steve sets it down in front of him. He gazes down at it for a while, giving away nothing of what’s on his mind. 

“There you go. Roast chicken, buttered potatoes and succotash.”

It’s supposed to be familiar-ish: a salute to the kinds of things they used to eat, albeit with infinitely better ingredients.

“Wow, Steve. This is great.”

“You did half of it. At least.”

Steve makes a show of digging straight in, snatching the odd glance so he can watch Bucky without really looking at him. Bucky picks up his knife and fork, slowly cuts a piece of chicken, and dips it in the gravy. He closes his eyes as he chews, which gives Steve a rush of satisfaction. 

“Oh. Why does it taste so _good_?”

Steve’s face warms a little. “Salt and pepper goes a long way.” 

“When did you learn to…” Bucky stops again, and chews his lip. “…Cook?”

There’s a pause.

“When my mom got sick,” Steve says.

The pang in his chest isn’t so much for her, as for the fact that Bucky didn’t know. All kinds of random, trivial memories are right there when he looks for them, but not the things that would have meant the most to him. He recalls Steve’s mom’s name, but apparently not that she died and left him an orphan. He knows that Steve used to line his shoes with newspaper, but not—

It’s like there are these huge gaps where the most important memories should be. The things his captors would have worked hardest to repress.

A wave of nausea quashes Steve’s appetite. “She hated not being able to do it,” he says, scraping pieces of corn into little piles on his plate. “She would sit and give me pointers.” 

The memory is a bittersweet one. Dwell on the good times, let the dark ones fade. 

“Good thing, too,” Bucky says.

Steve’s stomach twinges.

What is that? A hint of a memory, or just a kindly instinct for countering Steve’s melancholy? It’s true, his early attempts at cookery were not great, but he was never the type to quit. He kept working at it until he could make something decent out of whatever their money could buy, so he could take care of the people he loved. Does Bucky remember that?

“I mean, I’ve got better at it this century,” he says.

Bucky’s mouth twitches at the corners. 

“Chicken is so good,” he says.

“Right? I don’t think I ever had it until I got out of the ice. Remember, they used to put pork scraps on a skewer and call it chicken?”

“Right!” Bucky’s face immediately lights up with recognition, and he’s smiling with his eyes again. “‘City chicken’.”

“That’s it! That’s it. Well. Now we got _real_ chicken, buddy.”

They take another bite each. Bucky eats slowly, still in the habit of savouring every mouthful, and Steve automatically adjusts to keep pace with him.

“Does everybody eat this good now? Or just famous guys like you?”

“S’not just me.” Steve shakes his head, not bothering to swallow before replying. This is Bucky, after all. “I mean, this is really good stuff, it costs a lot. But you can buy decent food a lot cheaper. There’s just such a lot of choice now.”

“Wow.”

“’Specially for us ‘famous guys’.”

Bucky gives him another straight-faced smirk.

“Yeah. I mean, it’s not like poverty is over. Plenty of people are still just about getting by. Or not.”

Bucky nods, glumly, as if he feared as much.

“There’s a welfare system,” Steve goes on, filling the space that Bucky leaves, “Which is better than nothing. The neighbourhood feels so different, though. It’s pretty much still the poorest folks who are kindest to each other, as far as I can tell.”

He’s thinking about before. For the most part they all got by together. Not just he and Bucky, but the whole tenement. The whole street. 

Bucky spears a whole potato with his fork and peers at it. His mind always used to move so quickly, but now he seems to second-guess himself every time he speaks.

“Life was hard back then, huh?” he says, eventually.

“Seemed like it, sometimes.”

It’s so strange to think about it now. In hindsight, it was almost idyllic compared to what came next – for Bucky especially. But it sure felt pretty tough at the time. Losing his mom, constantly sick, living on no dough. Dealing with the looming fear of war, or even worse, being discovered. The thought of that was so frightening that the two of them sometimes felt like their visceral, unquenchable love was nothing but a cruel curse. 

But there was so much they took for granted, back before the war. Community, belonging. What freedom they had. Each other. How were they to know that they were happy?

“I think I was hungry sometimes,” Bucky says. The indent between his eyebrows deepens, as it does when he’s trying to remember. After a while he adds, “Feels like I’ve been hungry a long time.”

Steve pauses, mid-chew. They don’t tend to talk that much about Bucky’s decades in captivity, but the medical team say it’s important that it doesn’t feel taboo. Bucky’s clearest memories are from that time, after all, and he’s doing so much better. Sometimes it kinda feels like he wants to be drawn on it.

“What did they give you to eat? When you were…” 

Steve loses his nerve half way through the question. Bucky barely blinks, though.

“I dunno. Nothing good,” he says. “There was… a lot of mushy stuff, in little pouches, y’know?”

He glances up, matter-of-fact, but Steve’s heart sinks anyway.

“Sorry, Buck.”

“Don’t matter. I’m good now.”

He indicates the plate in front of him. 

“You know…” Bucky uses his fork like a shovel to scoop up the last of his succotash. “You know how, the longer you go without something, the better it is when you get it?”

“Yeah,” Steve smiles. “Yeah, I do.”

*

When both plates are almost clean, Steve gets up to flick the gas on under the soup. He made it yesterday, alone and looking for distractions, his hands going through the motions without a second thought. Chop up an onion, carrot and celery. Rinse a bag of dried split peas, put it all in water. Chicken stock would make it better, or a ham bone maybe, but he never had those in the 30s, so he’s not going to use them now. Garlic, thyme and pepper will do the trick. 

It’s only soup, he said to himself. It’s only bread. Easy enough. Why shouldn’t he cook it for Bucky? 

He’s made this recipe countless times since waking up. When it comes to the boil, the smell is like a portal to the past. One noseful and he’s straight back in it, sitting across a table from one or other of them. 

He can see his mom. Worn out, but relieved to see that her boy can take care of himself now. Bucky coming home after a long day, his eyes half-closed in gratitude. Bucky, sidling up and murmuring “You’re too good to me,” or “What’d I do to deserve you.” Slipping those sturdy arms around his slight waist, turning him around for brief kiss that turns into a long, hungry one, until Steve has to push him off, hissing “Eat, first.”

When he first woke up he would cook the pea soup in desperation, trying to bring his most precious memories back to life. Later, after he found out Bucky was alive and started to search for him, he would cook it as a ritual. Since Bucky’s been in New York, though, it’s become a guilty pleasure – a private, secret hope. Something he shouldn’t be dabbling in anymore, now that Bucky’s coming back to himself at his own pace. He probably shouldn’t have made it today, if he’s honest with himself.

But he has.

He goes back to the table. Both of them scrape their plates clean as the smells of pea soup and baking bread start to waft through from the kitchen. Steve watches Bucky as subtly as he can manage, his stomach fluttering, and he thinks he spots the moment where the scent reaches Bucky’s nose. 

“You got something else cooking in there?” he asks. 

“Maybe. You got some room left?”

“Maybe.”

Steve gathers up the plates with a clatter of cutlery, his heart thumping hard all the way to the kitchen. The loaf looks perfectly done – Irish soda bread is pretty difficult to mess up, thank God. He places it on a rack while he ladles pea soup into two bowls, then pulls a breadknife and cuts some generous slices. The crust is thick, and the loaf is so hot that steam rises from the fresh dough inside. He even has some really good butter to go with it – a vast improvement on the old days.

It’s a shame his white Ikea crockery is so unlike the chipped, floral dishes they used to eat off, but it’ll have to do. He loads everything onto a tray and carries it through, gripping it tightly to steady his hands.

“Here you go.” Steve places the soup and bread in front of Bucky. “I know it’s kinda backward, but… anyway, see what you think.”

He sits down and takes up his spoon, but ends up stirring the soup around his bowl, suddenly unable to eat.

“Wow, this smells so good,” Bucky says. 

Steve doesn’t even pretend not to look. Across the table, Bucky slurps a spoonful of soup.

He goes still for a moment. Steve’s heart sticks in his throat. Then Bucky reaches for a slice of bread.

His brow furrows. He peers up at Steve and takes a bite, chewing it slowly. Then he gazes down at the slice in his hand, and swallows hard.

“You… used to make this.”

Steve draws a shaky breath, but no words come out. When Bucky speaks again he’s looking Steve right in the eye.

“You used to make this. For me.”

Maybe his voice catches a little. Bucky looks like he’s been ambushed. His eyes hold Steve’s, full of confusion. Steve’s hand flies to his mouth, and for a few moments all he can do is nod. 

On Prospect Park West, the cars keep moving like nothing’s happened.

“It was your favourite,” Steve hears himself say.

Bucky blinks his gaze away.

And Steve is left reeling. Questions whirl wildly through his head like hurricanes. What else do you remember? Is there more? Our first kiss was during an argument. The first time we made love we were both shaking, and we cried after it, because we were so happy and so scared. You’re the only one who ever knew all of me. Do you remember that? 

But Bucky doesn’t say any more. He just keeps his eyes down, and goes back to eating.

Keeping a lid on it’s like benching himself during a battle, but Steve won’t take risks with Bucky. Don’t push. Be patient. Time is one thing they have in abundance.

He steadies himself like always, picks up a piece of bread and makes himself eat. The chink of their spoons breaks the silence while the past echoes around them.

Afterwards, the tension goes away by itself. Bucky rolls up his sleeves and does the dishes while Steve makes coffee, bumping into each other in the kitchen like they’re back in the tenement building over on Montague, and the war and the serum and the Valkyrie and HYDRA and the helicarriers never happened. Surely Bucky must feel it too, this easy companionability. It’s enough.

*

The light begins to soften through the west-facing kitchen window. 

“Sun’s going down. You wanna see?”

“Sure.”

Steve creaks open the balcony door and steps out onto the fire escape, coffee mug warm in his hand against the cool evening air. It’s a little quieter up here than down on the street. The view of the park is mainly treetops, but the sky looks beautiful at any time of day. Right now it’s just turning pink, with the kind of splodges of dark purple cloud that Steve’s paintbrush can never seem to get quite right.

Then there’s a soft footstep behind, and Bucky’s there at the railing with him. 

Steve lets out a long breath. He’s spent so many hours out here gazing over the city, trying to make sense of everything, and now, none of that seems to matter.

Neither one of them says anything. They’ve been through too much to need smalltalk. _I’m with you_ hangs in the air whether they voice it or not.

There was a time, once, when they’d have kept it up until the small hours, gossiping about the people in the neighbourhood, arguing about the war, making pie-in-the-sky plans for their shared future. But none of those daydreams defied the imagination like the future they got. 

In a bar, in another lifetime, Bucky had promised to follow him anywhere. And somehow, he damn well did it. Forever destined to watch Steve’s back, God help him.

To his left, Bucky shuffles a little. And then, unmistakeably, there’s a tentative brush of warm knuckles against the back of his hand.

Air rushes sharply into Steve’s lungs. He keeps his eyes on the horizon, and slowly, Bucky’s fingers slide between his. His heart stops. Or maybe time does, a second stretching out until he dares to exhale. It feels…. God, it feels just the _same_. Warm and furtive. Grounding. Skin no rougher than it ever was. 

Bucky’s fingers curl and dig in, and Steve squeezes back, holding on tight. Unwilling to let the moment pass.

Steve remembers everything, of course. A hundred shared sunsets. The stink of garbage in the summer. Bucky in an alleyway, wearing a brand-new uniform. The taste of Bucky’s skin. The ones who never got home. The train. It’s a lot to carry alone.

They forget their coffee and watch, with their hands clutched together, as the New York skyline turns fiery and golden. Steve keeps his gaze fixed on it even when it starts to swim before his eyes. He’s used to happiness finding him in small doses here and there, in little colourful splotches against the grey, but now Bucky’s thumb is rubbing that gentle rhythm over his own again, and the quiet, trembling joy that permeates him is almost more than he can take. 

I’ll follow you, Bucky had said. And look. Here they are. 

The sky’s faded to violet by the time Bucky’s phone buzzes in his pocket to say that his car has arrived.

*

It’s dark when they get down to the street. As always Steve itches to go in for a hug, but the thought of doing it is kind of overwhelming, and the surly-faced nurse watching them from the car makes him want to save it. Instead he shoves his hands in his pockets and looks around awkwardly.

“Thank you,” Bucky mumbles.

“Oh! Sure. It was… it was really great, Buck.” Steve’s cheeks are hot, but his smile is unstoppable.

“So… you’ll come Wednesday?”

“Of course.”

Bucky’s whole face shines. His eyes are a little glassy, but for the first time since he’s been back in Steve’s life, half of his mouth curves upward. It’s not quite the lopsided grin that used to charm everybody he used it on, but it makes Steve’s heart flutter just the same. 

Bucky Barnes, smiling at him under a Brooklyn streetlight. It’s a hell of a thing. His own eyes might prickle a little, but this is the lightest Steve’s felt since he was 95 pounds and five feet four.

They stand there until the nurse calls for Bucky to get in. As he lingers on the sidewalk to watch the tail lights turn the corner, Steve thinks he could wait forever for Bucky. _To the end_ , they’d said to each other, and somehow, in spite of everything, they haven’t got there yet.

As he turns and leaps back up the stairs, he feels like the luckiest son of a bitch alive.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading!
> 
> I tumblr [here](https://escapologistldn.tumblr.com/), all are welcome to hang. I give out nothing but love (at least until I know you).
> 
> Title from Tom Waits's [Martha](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9Mse62NFl4)


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